with Jellema/Ross
once her dress
her dress was white
pockets filled
with snow and ice
her dress
its hem was endless
a sentence by Dickinson
sewn on a scrap
small hands gath'ring
a view condensed
haunted by the doubled-edge
of solitude, and reams
of braided words that seemed
a soundless stretch
a depth of blue
her girdle fast
like a finger band
a gasp cinched
in a sachet
a cricket caged
in a locket
round her neck
round her hair
a ribbon of red
an ache escaped
its lacings and clasps
undo this knot twined
'neath her breast
Listen ~
Her wrist pulsed
slender threads
a beat beneath
fingertips
her wrist
her wrist
her dress was white
'twas pockets
filled with snow and ice
she walked
in winter on the frozen lake
she pictured the thawing
she saw she saw
the harebell field
stared like a sea
dense like a promise,
a splayed memory
Written with Reka Jellema & Kathryn Ross
© Bonsack/Jellema/Ross
October 2014